Let’s talk platform adoption

Today’s consumer continuously evaluates and re-evaluates. And with limitless access to make comparisons and no cost to switch to other companies, all in a matter of seconds. People can switch again and again.

Loyalty is over. What matters today is constant relevance.

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For platform businesses—and in today’s market that’s nearly all businesses—the challenge of attracting and retaining users is just the start. To succeed, platforms need to achieve and sustain an intensely customer-centric mindset across multiple points of evaluation. And maintain this at scale, faster than ever. The timeframe for growth is being constantly compressed as competition for hearts, minds and wallets intensifies.

Platform growth requires users, developers and partners to adopt and engage on the platform. All sides of the model need to scale to harness the network effects that create a cycle of rapid growth. Standing still is to admit defeat. This is a market in which winners win faster, but losers’ descent is just as rapid. And those losses are potentially huge. Our research indicates that around the world, companies are losing nearly $1 trillion in annual revenues to competitors. Why? Because they’re not relevant – to everyone – all the time.

Achieving the relevance that drives profitable scale requires platforms to address these three key challenges: